The finish line: truly the happiest place on earth

Photo by Gabrielle K. GabrielliRunner Bing Xu of Tallahassee completes the Tallahassee Marathon, finishing first in his 45-49 age category.

Disney has it all wrong. The real happiest place on earth has to be where I was yesterday: near the finish line of a marathon.

I worked the gate of the Tallahassee Marathon, where runners coming back into the track at the end of their run – either 13.1 miles for the half or 26.2 miles for the full marathon – could see the finish line and hear their names and hometowns announced for the crowd.

Finishers medals for 40th annual Tallahassee Marathon.

This was one of the last places I might have been expected to be a couple years ago, or even before we started Move.Tallahassee.com last year, especially on Super Bowl Sunday. Wasn’t I supposed to be on my couch or cooking for the big party?

Instead I was on the track helping to keep it cleared of spectators and overzealous friends as runners came through. Officially, something like 1,053 made it across the line for the half or full marathon, including wheelchair athlete Edward Russell of Bristol, 60, who crossed in 3:54:10.2. The complete list of finishers can be found at this link.

But that’s not the complete story; the whole story could be found only by meeting these incredible athletes and learning their incredible stories. By seeing and hearing their triumph up close.

Officially, I volunteered because I wanted to learn more about how races work for the purposes of Move.Tallahassee.com and pick the brains of the experts at Gulf Winds Track Club, picking up what knowledge I could, and because the Tallahassee Democrat is a big sponsor of the marathon.

Unofficially, I love it. Just love great stories and the people who create them. That’s why I volunteered to work the start-finish line area. I even got to put a finisher’s medal on one of the marathon runners.

Of course, I didn’t even know most of their names, but I found myself fighting back tears of emotions anyway as they entered the track. Like the woman who was barely able to move as she finished the run, calling to her daughter, “Run with me, baby, so I can make it.” After running a marathon, she found strength where a mother always does: in her child.

There was a man about my age to whom I tried to offer encouragement. “You got it. Just halfway around the track and you’re in.”

He looked at me and smiled and said, “Would you carry me across?”

“If that’s what you need, you bet,” I replied.

He shook his head. “No way, I got this.” And he did.

Another man began to pump his fists into the air as his name was announced. And he continued to pump them all the way across the finish line.

Friends – like Florida State University police Major Jim Russell, 43, running his first full marathon – slapped hands with me as they entered the stadium. He finished as the 331st runner across the line: an amazing accomplishment in my book.

I was proud, too, to see Move.Tallahassee.com blogger Heather Fuselier finish the full 26.2 miles.

Then there was this: The stadium erupted with cheers for a young woman named Megan when a throng of placard-carrying friends spotted her on the track. Her leg and arm muscles were quivering as she passed me at the gate.

But the cheers of her friends who greeted her as she ran around the curve of the track seemed to lift her up and across the line.

It was a welcome befitting a champion performance for a champion who finished hundreds of runners deep into the pack.

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You can send comments by clicking on Bob Gabordi’s blog on Tallahassee.com or Move.Tallahassee.com, e-mailing him at bgabordi@tallahassee.com, sending a private message on Tallahassee.com and Twitter @bgabordi. You can also find links to his blogs on Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+. His mailing address is Bob Gabordi, Executive Editor, Tallahassee Democrat, P.O. Box 990, Tallahassee, FL 32302. His telephone number is 850-599-2177.